Out of the Silent Planet
About this book
The first book in Lewis's Space Trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet tells the story of Dr. Elwin Ransom, a philologist who likes to explore the English countryside on foot. Seeking out a place to stay the night, he ends up at the estate of a colleague who is away in London. However, the house is not empty. Ransom stumbles upon the plot of a megalomaniacal scientist and his collaborator, who just happens to be an old schoolmate of Ransom's. Drugged, kidnapped, and wisked away in the scientists rocket to the planet Malacandra where he is to serve as a human sacrifice, Dr. Ransom escapes into the strange Malacandran wilderness pursued by his kidnappers and abandoning his hopes of returning to Earth. Ransom discovers that the inhabitants of Malacandra are not what his kidnappers believed them to be. In his adventures in the often strangely beautiful, sometimes dangerous, and sometimes surprisingly familiar Malacandra and its inhabitants, Ransom uncovers information about the larger universe and Earth's place that suggest he has as much to discover about his home planet as he does about the alien Malacandra.
Reader Profile
3.9/5 · 7973 readers · 174 pages · ≈ 3 h 13 m · Challenging
What order should I read the The Space Trilogy series?
Read Out of the Silent Planet first, then follow the publication order above — Perelandra.
How long does it take to read Out of the Silent Planet?
About ≈ 3 h 13 m — 174 pages, assuming roughly 250 words per page at 225 words per minute.
How many pages is Out of the Silent Planet?
174 pages in its most-read edition.
What genre is Out of the Silent Planet?
It sits on the Science Fiction, Fiction shelves.
Is Out of the Silent Planet in the public domain?
No — it is still under copyright.
Where does Out of the Silent Planet take place?
It takes place in 1950-.
Who wrote Out of the Silent Planet?
C. S. Lewis.
The Space Trilogy — reading order
- → Out of the Silent Planet (1938) you are here
- 1 Perelandra (1943)